Criticism is the endeavour to find, to know, to love, to recommend, not only the best, but all the good, that has been known and thought and written in the world.

The Italian prose tale had begun to exercise that influence as early as Chaucer's time: but circumstances and atmosphere were as yet unfavourable for its growth.

Alcoholic drinks, rightly used, are good for body and soul alike, but as a restorative of both there is nothing like brandy.

Nothing is more curious than the almost savage hostility that Humour excites in those who lack it.

The hardest thing to attain... is the appreciation of difference without insisting on superiority.

It is the unbroken testimony of all history that alcoholic liquors have been used by the strongest, wisest, handsomest, and in every way best races of all times.

I do not think anything serious should be done after dinner, as nothing should be before breakfast.

When people cannot write good literature it is perhaps natural that they should lay down rules how good literature should be written.

When [wines] were good they pleased my sense, cheered my spirits, improved my moral and intellectual powers, besides enabling me to confer the same benefits on other people. (Notes on a Cellar Book)

But the eighteenth century, on the whole, loathed melancholy.

But even gold is not everything: and only a fanatic, and a rather foolish fanatic, would say that this style of fiction summed up and exhausted all the good that fiction could give and do.

Character is made of duty and love and sympathy, and, above all, of living and working for others.

I am not opposed to all wars. I'm opposed to dumb wars.

Action movies live and die by the story that you're trying to tell. It's hard. It's very difficult to do an action movie that stays engaging.

I'm not taking any interest in politics. I'm not involved in politics in any way. My life is in writing now.

People have a peculiar pleasure in making converts, that is, in causing others to enjoy what they enjoy, thus finding their own likeness represented and reflected back to them.

If you look at the last decade of global temperature, it's not increasing.

You get behind some of the numbers, like the underfunded pensions in the US, and I'm not sure people even understand how wrong their situation is.

Ahimsa is my God, and Truth is my God.

I believe that through music we can help heal the world.

Because I had sought to challenge Destiny, Destiny had taken vengeance.